Building a Bungalow on own site

sheff the ref

Roughly 1200 to 1500 square ft with corresponding converted attic size perhaps 800 square feet? Sunroom to side. Garage. Direct labour. Block wall. Initially looking to finish Bedroom, Bathroom, Kitchen, Sitting Room and do the rest over time, with the upstairs portion being a long term project. Used to work for a carpenter during my college years so I may do a lot of the second fixings myself.

I intend being very frugal in terms of the design of the house. No frills, maximum economy in terms of space. Would like a decent sized kitchen/dining room. Utility with Toilet/Shower, and sufficient space to hang clothes in an inside overhead clothesline. Economy sized main bathroom. 4 bedrooms (or perhaps 3 bedrooms/one office) with 2 small ensuite, walkin wardrobe on master bedroom. Reasonable sized Sitting Room, Second Smaller Sitting room.

Want a decent spec of insulation, pumped cavities with beads, insulated plaster boards inside external walls. Unsure of whether to go double glazed or triple glazed windows as reports on the return from triple glazed versus the extra cost are varied.

I am very reluctant to use oil as the main source of heating. Life is too short for worrying about the cost of extra oil use during cold snaps. Will definitely have a stove with a back boiler to heat rads. Worked at ground source Geothermal once and know of success stories, and heartbreak stories. High ESB bills stem from overworked heatpump, which generally stems from not enough pipework in the collector for the fluid to circulate efficiently. Better to have an oversized collector than an undersized one even if the initial work is greater. The trouble is that you need underfloor heating to maximise efficiency with Geothermal, and I am not sure that I want underfloor. There are more and more stories emerging about leaking pipework. Has anyone experience of air to water heatpumps??? Wood Pellets arent ideal either because they use consumables that are increasing in price. Solar is something I will use but will not contribute greatly towards heating the house. As the old saying goes, there is no such thing as free heat.

I am the sort that will price everything infinitely over and over again in terms of materials (as in online, UK, North etc.) and for some forms of labour without sacrificing the quality of the workmanship, taking into account the negatives of opting for the cheapest option.

Has anyone done anything similar??? Any costings that can be PM'd to me??

HoofRocks

you have described our own situation to a nutshell.

Very interested in replies to this.

Hair's Pam

Just in the middle of doing something similar ourselves at the minute. Block layers will be finished tomorrow. Roof is starting
Next week.
We had our own site, building a 2300sq ft bungalow with space In the attic to convert down the road. We went with underfloor heating which will be ran from our stove with back boiler. We will also have 3,4 solar panels that will be plumbed into same multi energy tank as oil burner and stove and our under floor heating will take water from this tank. Our plumber recons if our system is ran properly we will only need our oil for bk up if we light our stove in the
Evening.

Our insulation we went for a 125 m full cavity fill in the walls which will save us using cosy board on the external walls and save labour cost. Insulation was a bit more expensive though. We used 120 ml underfloor insulation 2 rows of 60 mil with staggered joints

Windows, we have being advised to spent
The 3k it roughly costs between double and triple glazed on insulating our attic better and using tape around window and door joint which you can do you self.

Our house is 30m long by 10.5 wide. Roof labour and material roughly 14k
Windows roughly 10k didn't decide on which company we will use. Got 4 quotes so far ranging from 9800 to 13800 for double glazed all of u value 1.2-1.4.


When we do our Maths should
Be in with bout 120k-130 spent. Including esb, our own well drilled, perculations all done. House won't be fully furnished but main areas done.

Hope this helps a little. I cut the crap out of every supplier it's a buyers market out there. Builders providers mad for business. Cash deals e.g labour, materials etc. I work early and finish early sonu have from 2 every day to price
Around, fight for prices check dockets ect ect. A lot of work done ourselves to keep on top of it. But I will be worth it in the end.

sheff the ref

When you say a 2300 square foot bungalow, I presume that is without the attic.

I like the sound of a multi-energy tank. I presume that is a large capacity tank with three coils being fed from oil, stove and solar. Is there an option for a fourth energy source??

Is the full cavity fill sufficient to minimise heat loss, would it be any more advantageous to also insulate the inside of the external walls?

Hair's Pam

Yeah that is jus the floor space down stairs. We double joiced one bedroom to leave space for a stairs if we do ever get to convert up stairs we can then use the original bedroom as a computer room or office.

Our engineer n insulation supplier said the full fill insulation is up to the required standards without using insulation on the Interior walls.

The tank were using as far as I can remember is 7ft high and and over a meter wide think it's a 700 ltr tank we will be using. There are bigger options available. Not sure about the 4th coil in the tank but we will be having the three. Basically I think its a tank inside a tank. Rather than using old buffer tanks and should save us money.

We kept our design simple just a rectangle with large rooms and no wasted space. Nothing fancy or over adventureous. Think the underfloor heating is the only thing we spent a few extra bob on. Prob Gona go with a double glazed window that's U value is 1.4. Just in the middle of deciding on a window company. Don't know who to go with.

sheff the ref

Thanks for the info,

If your Engineer is happy with the insulation, it must be grand, though I would like to evaluate if doubling up on the insulation would save heating costs significantly.

So much work and thought ahead of me.....but like yourself, I would have the time to put into it. I am naturally the sort who will get umpteen prices for everything anyway so I will be OK from that perspective.

I would probably be opting for something 20-30% smaller than yours. With 2300 square feet on the ground floor, you probably have capacity for 1000 square feet overhead, which gives you a massive house in excess of 3000 square feet if you had it all.

A smaller version of this where space is maximised but without the hipped roof, and without the kitchen extending out at the back would suit. Would like a small sunroom built onto the side.

http://www.blueprinthomeplans.ie/homeplan-d.asp?P_ID=383